What you see is what you get

Surprise: It’s not Sunday, but still here’s a Larry the Free Software Guy blog post.

I was speaking to someone today who was recently “slashdotted” — clearly both a rite of passage and a badge of honor in FOSS circles — and I started to think about my experience on Slashdot a few months ago.

At Linux Fest Northwest, a videographer interviewed me about CrunchBang, and it ended up on Slashdot. No, I didn’t change my surname to “Califero,” as the title shows at the beginning of the video, but never mind. There’s about 18 or so minutes of me talking about CrunchBang — about the same length of time in the gap in the Watergate tapes (purely coincidental, I assure you) — but I thought it was a lot of fun and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I should mention that although I didn’t respond to any of the comments, I found a great majority of them to be entertaining and hilarious. I am grateful for the entertainment. I could have addressed the phalanx of malcontents who seem to have nothing better to do than post comments on Slashdot articles (that, of course, does not include all commenters, but some), but I decided not to. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a raindrop in the Pacific, so I just enjoyed the moment.

This morning, I thought about the video and the Slashdot experience because there are comments that I thought were unfair and could use clarification.

Specifically, one commenter said that there was an opportunity missed and, to paraphrase, the commenter implied I didn’t “sell” CrunchBang properly. That’s interesting because it wasn’t a sales pitch, and as much as CrunchBang works for me, it might not work for him or her — that’s a determination that one has to make for one’s self by trying it.

In fact, in my opinion, the only thing FOSS advocates for any distro or FOSS program should “sell” is the concept of using whichever distro or FOSS program works for you. If there was anything lacking in the video, it’s this.

As an aside, CrunchBang’s lead developer Philip Newborough himself has said this in the past, and it’s on a slide in my standard CrunchBang presentation: “It is a common mistake to think that every developer wants their project to be widely popular.”

The other thing I wanted to mention — and something else I find humorous — is this: A slew of Captain Obvious wannabes couldn’t help pointing out to me, and to others (which, sooner or later, made their way back to me) that I may not be the most handsome or eloquent “spokesman” for the distro.

First of all, I’m not CrunchBang’s spokesman. That would be Philip Newborough. But let’s put that aside for a second.

It may come as a surprise to some, but I am at peace with the fact that I no longer possess my drop-dead handsome boyish charm of decades past, and I realize my public speaking skills run hot and cold; nothing short of plastic surgery and hair transplants could remotely help the former, and I’m working to be more consistent on the latter.

Other than forum moderator, I hold no official title within the CrunchBang community. I lend my fairly extensive experience as a FOSS exhibitor to CrunchBang at the shows I attend with permission from the lead developer, and I gladly do this at my own expense.

I contribute time, and occasionally money, because CrunchBang is an exceptional project based on a remarkable Debian-based distro backed by a community model of service and cooperation. Being as involved as I am, I feel there are two options I can take: I could say nothing to others about it and keep all this FOSS goodness to myself, or I could let others know about this great thing called CrunchBang and let them decide if they want to be a part of it.

Keeping it to myself would be selfish, so I let others know — yeah, I plead guilty to evangelistic zeal at times, but in the end it’s really up to you to try it and determine if it’s right for you. That last part? I make that point in presentation after presentation I give about CrunchBang and hope it sinks in.

So those of you who aren’t using it, or haven’t tried it, give it a shot and let me know what you think. If you like it? Great. If it’s not for you? OK then, thanks for giving it a shot.

In the end, what you see is really what you get.

See you Sunday.

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

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It’s always easy for others to criticize (insert criticism here). But I like to read articles and reviews from people who are a fan of their product. It make the reading more fun, You know they like it, and you can still decided if you like it. Video presentation, I’ve had to do those in the past. I’m willing to bet almost, if not all of the, uh, critics, have not done so. Besides,I’m at a point in my life where I can laugh at myself. Keep doing what you’re doing, and do it your way!